Minister playing down NHS claim

Nick Clegg is reportedly planning to oppose the idea of a regulator to promote competition in the NHS

A Conservative minister has played down suggestions that the Government is to abandon plans for a regulator to promote competition in the NHS in the face of opposition from Nick Clegg.

The Deputy Prime Minister was reported to have told a meeting of Liberal Democrat MPs and peers that the regulator, Monitor, should have a duty to push NHS collaboration rather than competition.

The BBC said it had obtained a Lib Dem policy document, signed by Mr Clegg, in which he said the proposal to establish Monitor as an "economic regulator" was "clearly a misjudgment".

"I have come to the conclusion that we must not make this change," he said.

The change would strip out a key plank of Health Secretary Andrew Lansley's NHS reforms - currently on hold as the Government conducts a "listening" exercise in the face of widespread concern within the service and among patients.

But Conservative Health Minister Simon Burns insisted that no decisions had been made and Mr Clegg's proposals were among a number of ideas for change that were being considered.

He told the BBC: "They (the Liberal Democrats) have come up with some ideas, like a load of other people throughout the NHS. All these ideas will be considered when the listening process is over and then decisions will be taken."

Evan Harris, a former Lib Dem MP and vice chairman of the party's federal policy committee, said Mr Burns was "wrong" to say Mr Clegg's comments were simply a contribution to the listening exercise.

"We have made very clear that there will be no Government majority for things not in the coalition agreement, like this mass marketisation of the health service, without Liberal Democrat MPs and peers," he told BBC Radio 4. "They will not vote for Monitor to be an economic regulator so this is a veto."

Shadow health secretary John Healey said: "People can't trust Nick Clegg with the NHS. He only wants to save his party. The Lib Dems are now making arguments on the NHS that Labour has been making for months."